


Fool Me Twice

by Ecanus



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Gen, King Gavin, Mad King Ryan, king AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-19 06:17:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2377919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ecanus/pseuds/Ecanus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isn't it obvious? The Fool's gone Mad.</p>
<p>(For the second return of the Mad King)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fool Me Twice

The King is unwell.

It’s not hard to see it, no matter how much he tries to conceal the fact. Gavin began his rule immediately after slaying the Minotaur, if only simply because the Mad King had vanished before they’d navigated out of the maze, the trek made even longer with a severely injured Ray in tow. All that was left of Haywood was the crown that had been passed along the line of kings, placed on the seat of the throne as though it did not need to adorn anyone to rule.

They should not have been so quick to dismiss it all.

Even so, they handed the crown to Gavin, as it seemed only right that the hero should rule. And there he sat, quite comfortably on the throne, his legs crossed over the armrest, leaning back with a nonchalance that only the Trickster King could achieve.

And one they would soon miss.

It was gradual, over months. At first it was the little behaviors that caught their attention—losing his train of thought mid-sentence more often than he usually would, giggling to himself and not realizing he was laughing until someone pointed it out—but they attributed it to stress. It was quite the promotion to go from Jester to King.

It grew. Months in to his Kingship, they started to notice a paleness to his skin, bags under his eyes, a maddening tone to his smallest laughs. Around the kingdom, the wildlife had begun to stir. Flowers grew oddly, stems like thick vines, petals that prick at the slightest touch. The forests outside the city became abundant with trees that look hundreds of years old—which no one was complaining about; they predicted a long winter and plentiful wood was priceless.

One day, Geoff tasted poison in his apple and spit it out.

Half a year into his rule, Gavin started hiding in the court. The nonchalance of his first time on the throne was gone. Instead, he sat with a sort of rigidness—feet planted on the floor, back straight, though his hands sometimes continued to fiddle… especially running through his hair, touching his forehead, feeling the tops of his ears. So close to the crown yet never touching it. If one looked close enough, they might see vines peaking through the cracks in the court’s cobblestone walls.

Now, a month after his isolation, he shuts off access to the court to all but himself.

It’s Jack who decides this can no longer be ignored.

He had always remained faithful to whomever he served—provided his services as a Blacksmith, an Architect, a Trainer, what have you. It was only to the Mad King that he did not willingly comply; only the threat of death looming over him forced him to do so. Though he feels suited to be a King—has, in fact, royal blood in his veins—he feels more obligation to protect and serve than to purposely take the throne as his own.

And it is the former reason that he decides to act. For Gavin’s sake.

It’s the night of the same day of the King’s complete isolation that Jack wanders deeper into the kingdom, all the citizens—worried but trusting of their well-liked King— already fallen easily into slumber. There is nothing to light the way save for the occasional candle lit on a residence’s window sill, forgotten, wax leaking from the dishes and adding an extra odor to the mild stench of manure from small family farms. Despite the stillness of the air, the chill still nips at the Blacksmith’s skin, little puffs of breath visible each time he exhales.

It seems a peaceful autumn night. Ordinary. But Jack feels—knows—it is far from it.

He continues. Continues until he is confronted by the court’s large doors. He fears for what he might find inside, but still he raises his hand, slowly placing his fingertips on the surface.

“Jack.”

His head whips to the left, to a series of trees that he knows eventually thickens into a forest. Jack pales like he’s seen a ghost.

That is exactly what he believes it to be.

There, standing with a hand placed gently against the trunk of a young oak, is Michael Jones, famous bearskin slung over his shoulders and diamond sword in his grasp.

Not possible, Jack thinks. Not possible.

The great Mogar, the Righteous King, was slain at the hands of Haywood, the warrior’s own sword through his chest before a hundred witnesses.

Before he can stop himself, Jack takes a step forward. “Mogar?”

The apparition fades in to the trees.

“Wait—” he says, and before he knows it, his feet are carrying him from the cobblestone path to the grassy undergrowth of the forest, underneath the canopy and into darkness, forgetting briefly of the task at hand.

Jack reaches into his belt and takes out the single torch he took with him, swiping a match and setting it alight. The torch’s flame sends a glow against the bark of the trees, but Michael is nowhere to be seen.

“Mogar! Michael!” Jack calls, but the night swallows his voice like a vacuum. Something in his gut tells him he should leave—you’re hallucinating Pattillo, go back—but some other part of him is hoping that the warrior somehow survived. That maybe Michael’s death was an illusion conjured by the Mad King to strike fear into the kingdom. Hope, indeed, is the essence that Mogar holds. Held.

“Michael, plea—”

He answers.

But not with words.

A presence suddenly whizzes past the Blacksmith, extremely fast yet it doesn’t create any sort of wind. He darts his eyes in the direction it had gone, torch up. “What—”

Again, but this time he sees it clearer. It looks like Michael, but it’s as though he’s been sped up—walking but his legs moving faster than should be possible, his whole frame looking unnatural in its movement. Jack catches the dead stare of his eyes just briefly and knows that it’s not him.

He needs to get out.

Jack moves, and it’s like he’s the opposite—slow motion, legs stuck in half the speed they should be moving, against his will. Michael rushes past once more. And again, but this time he’s halfway in the ground, up to his chest, but the apparition moves as though nothing is there. He stops some ways away, then rewinds. Then vanishes.

The world very promptly collapses around Jack. Or perhaps not collapses. It’s as though it was never there at all. Pattillo stares with horror at the unending abyss of the stars, heart in his throat, before the ground beneath him vanishes too. His scream does not exist.

He blacks out.

When he comes to, it is as though nothing happened. Jack is standing in the court, now within the gargantuan walls that he does not remember passing through, torch gone. The panic is still seizing his system as he takes in his surroundings.

Wildlife has consumed the court, engulfing the cobblestone in chaotic streams of vines and roots like veins. Elder trees sprout from the ground and from the walls, reaching up the full height of the huge room, branches pushing and threatening to collapse the four-story ceiling. Even now, Jack can see leaves sprouting, stems growing, flowers blooming only to let out a dramatic puff of odor like a last breath before withering.

And there, on the throne, sits King Gavin, sideways with his legs scrunched to his chest, fingers hovering around the crown adorning his head.

Heart still pounding, Jack speaks. “My Liege?”

Gavin’s head shoots up. He looks a monster. Or… only partly. Jack sees his face almost twitching—no, that’s not the right word. It’s as though reality is rending across his features, spreading from his face to the rest of his body, glitches in time and space, instability contorting his expression into something scared, something angry, something feral.

“Jack, why— how are you here?” he says, his voice trembling, legs parting from his chest as he moves to stand. Jack doesn’t move—only watches as the Trickster King plants both feet on the ground, stands, and walks forward, the glitches continuing. ”You shouldn’t be here—” a voice unlike Gavin’s speaks shortly after, a deep and terrifying **“LEAVE”** echoing and shaking the very court.

Jack reaches for his battle ax.

“Please, just leave me be— **GET OUT—** _help me—_ I promise everything’s fine.” His face changes for barely half a second—terrifying, grotesque, pitiful.

“My Liege— what’s happened to you—”

Gavin opens his mouth as if to speak again—but stops himself. His mouth hangs open, and all at once the glitches cease. He stares at Jack with wide eyes, of horror and shock and fear.

It is not until a diamond sword rends through his chest that he understands why.

With blood already pooling in his mouth, dribbling into his beard, the Blacksmith looks down, shaking, looking at the engraving of “M O G A R” on the shining blue blade, now filled with red. Whatever illusion that might have brought on—of the Righteous King being alive, of the betrayal this would be—is broken by the voice at his ear.

“Isn’t it obvious? The Fool’s gone Mad.”

A hand pushes at Jack’s back, sliding him off the sword, and he collapses in a wheezing heap on the vine-covered stone.

Gavin watches the man step over the corpse, boots soaking in the blood as he walks toward the King.

“No, you can’t be, no—” he mutters. Gavin steps back, head shaking unnaturally. A second later, he turns and bolts for the back wall, ready to teleport through to escape.

An arrow pierces his cape, cleaves through the material of his clothes at his waist and leaves a deep gash before embedding into the bark of a tree, pinning him. Panicked, the King reaches for the arrow to remove it. The shaft burns to the touch.

He turns awkwardly in his crouch, trapped, the glitches returning as the sound of a bow clattering on the ground reaches his ears. “No— _have mercy—_ **DON’T TOUCH ME—** _take it away from me—_ ”

There is no hurry in the intruder’s step—the same sort of nonchalance so characteristic of Gavin, once upon a time. He walks like he has all the time in the world.

Each step he takes closer to the panicked King causes the world to distort further—walls flip, the trees’ trunks become blood red, the throne moves like it’a been clipped out of reality and placed halfway through the wall before returning to its place. The very air screams in a deafening buzz of protest as fingers reach out. Reach out for a crown that he cursed with madness so many months ago.

He takes it.

Gavin reaches out for it feebly, grasping the front with such desperation that he doesn’t feel the points pierce his flesh. A venomous scowl mars the man’s face. He pulls the crown hard out of the Trickster’s hand, then promptly lifts his foot to stomp Gavin’s face into the roots of the tree.

“When will all of you learn,” he sighs, and as he lowers the bloodied crown onto his head, the chaos ceases. Reality calms. It returns to as it should be.

The Mad King grins.

“The crown belongs to me.”

The air continues to scream.


End file.
